This is something I noticed a while ago, but never so clearly. It must be an psychoacoustic thing.

To me, a simple saw up sounds different than a saw down. By default the G2 has saw up waveforms. When I turn the saw down it sounds like it has a bit more of low end. Of course when I look at the waveform it's just inverted, and there is no visual evidence of emphasized low frequencies, but I trust my ears. I can clearly and blindly hear the difference.

So, maybe is something related to the way my headphones work? or my audio interface? Maybe the ears can really notice the difference? what for?

In any case, I find that the saw down waveform to sound "fuller". Would a Moog synthesizer sound exactly the same if their waveforms were inverted? Curiously it has saw down waveforms.

Please let me know what you think.

I have attached a wave file and a simple patch. Just tweak the polarity knob.

it is more a psycho-acoustic feel. it is like playing the violin. when playing the thing you touch the string with the bow descended and up. thats the reason for in an orchestra that the note lines are noted with the behavior of the bow. it would be a sonologic mess when the string players could decide for themselves to play up or down. hey, you are up early ross:)_________________Roland Kuit
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composer|research|synthesis|sound design|lecturer
http://rolandkuit.com/

Wouldn't the capacitance inherent in any routing behave differently between, a sudden positive excursion followed by a falling value, and a sudden negative excursion followed by a rising value?
I know, in theory, that capacitive reactance should present the same regardless of polarity. But what if there are polarised caps in the audio path?
Then again, I could be wrong. Just a thought._________________What makes a space ours, is what we put there, and what we do there.

a descending bowing gives a positive vibration, up-a negative. it is easy to make a pch and implement this.it will make things more realistic. i will have a look, but not now/have to do things. basically you are right uncle...and not. payed neg of pos after each other, in sound there is no difference in perspective. but played both at the same time it would._________________Roland Kuit
----------------------------
composer|research|synthesis|sound design|lecturer
http://rolandkuit.com/

I'm not really talking about the perception, more about how a saw wave and it's theoretically identical (and yet inverted) timbre may not make it out of the instrument, through the amp, speakers and into our heads with the same shape. There could be some anomaly in the hardware which modifies the timbre just because it's inverted.

Or not._________________What makes a space ours, is what we put there, and what we do there.

I have attached a wave file and a simple patch. Just tweak the polarity knob.

I dont know if there are up or downgoing saws in the wav (I didnt view it), or maybe both ... when I hold my breath all the bursts sound the same ... however I notice that I tend to sync my breath to the bursts - in on odd bursts and out on the even ones. Breathing in there seems to be another preception than breathing out (and next time for better relaxation make the bursts a bit longer please )

This was on laptop speakers ... will repeat it with some others later ... so please don't tell the plot!_________________Jan

Its not a saw of course we listened to , but some block was mixed in as well ... anyway, I've left that and most other things as is and I only changed the manual fade into an automatic one with an LFO ... and I removed the envelope to have it on continuously ... please up the main volume a bit after loading it.

Incredible, what a nice discover! It's evident the filtered saw sound is different, especially in the first octave of a G2 (without noise and sub osc). I'll try to compare the NMG1 (that's in the other sense) or Minimoog paying attention to that point.

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